Mutual Friends Aren't
by Nyah
Summary: Eric grinned, remembering the captain with the wide smile and strange, enchanting blood, half-mad and wholly beautiful and a hundred years out of place. Eric&Pam, Ten/Rose  Cross!


Disclaimer: Neither Doctor Who nor True Bloods belongs to me. Any assumptions to the contrary get progressively more absurd every time I have to write that.

Note: This is a crossover. Yes. I know there are places for such things. BUT I've sorely neglected Sookie and company for a while and crossovers tend to go under the radar. SO, if you've any interest in SVM, Doctor Who, my stories, or some combination, you may enjoy this.

**Mutual Friends Aren't**

"So what are these, then? Single-celled alien parasites that grew and evolved inside another royal family until they happened to be an awful lot—

Well, she expects him to say and yes and then some hemming and hawing. But braced at the door of the TARDIS, hands raised defensively, he says, "No. No, that's not it at all."

Outside, a voice says, "Come." And it says, "Now."

Rose is already ducking, already scrambling into the shadows.

###

"The Doctor in the TARDIS," the once-a-woman says, full lips twitching delicately in an otherwise still face (lovely some might think, but he thinks stalled). "How very … fortunate." She waits the length of a practiced pause. "For me."

And now is usually when he spins questions and tacks on jokes and weaves himself into a nightmare. But they're walking through the frame of a half-finished building, stepping over beams and skirting piles of splintered wood.

"This isn't going to end well." The woman prods, smiling calmly with just those full lips that know him somehow. Waiting for him to say it.

As threats go, it's subtle and gorgeous.

"What do I call you then?" He says instead.

###

Thumb in her mouth, Rose is watching the Doctor grow small in grainy black and white on the monitor when there's another knock at the door. "Rose Tyler," says a low voice, vowels sunk in sap, consonants wrapped in amber.

"What do you want?" She asks. The Doctor's eyes had said split up but hiding has never been in her nature.

"To talk," he says. "You can open the door. I can't enter without your permission."

There's not much to be done. She can't get to the Doctor or fly the TARDIS. "It's … she's not mine," Rose explains through a tentatively opened door. She knows a thing or two about vampires.

"Neither is she his." His hand on her wrist is cold as she stumbles against his chest, disoriented in the low light of the control room by the sudden closeness of him. A scream rises in her throat, hard on the heels of that first, shocked gasp but his eyes seem to drink it in, swallow it down to silence. "Though she'd like to be."

"My name is Eric," he says.

She feels warm.

"You are bleeding."

###

"Ran into a friend of yours, oh, a decade or so back," Pam says, inspecting her nails. "Pretty," she says without looking up. "Charming. My Master nearly accepted his rather persistent offer of a drink. But then the fool got himself stabbed in a bar fight. Died as easy as any idiot I've ever seen."

"Would that idiot be my 'friend' or your 'Master'?"

Angry fingers fist in the Doctor's shirt. Sharp canines skim Pam's lower lip. "Be glad your friend was charming," she hisses. "And delicious."

"Defensive, are we?" The Doctor looks down, waiting for her hand to drop under the weight of his gaze, draw back at the shock of the storm.

She holds out longer than most.

"My friend?" He prompts.

She's been waiting for this.

"Pretty man," she says again. "Died in a bar fight. Then in a house fire. Then when he asked my Master to drain him dry."

The corners of her smile were rising with the horror in his gut.

"Didn't stick that last time either."

###

"Caught my thumb on the grate," Rose says. She doesn't say it was when she was hiding from the lady vampire.

"Easily mended," Eric replies, holding her wrist lightly.

Rose feels warm and sleepy. "So, vampires just walking around in broad daylight?" She vaguely hopes she's not mumbling.

"Not quite," Eric chuckles in springing base notes. A laugh like a down comforter, Rose thinks, and considers sleeping.

"Oi," she draws the sound too long. "Okay, not daylight." She laughs. "But walking around with normal people. Owning shops. Having jobs. Must have gotten it wrong. Said we were going before the, whaddayacallit, Great … Revelation."

Eric grips her by both shoulders, standing her up straight. "Great Revelation? How do you know about that?"

"Yeah," Rose replies, shaking her head at the fog, forgetting the question. "Doctor said they called it 'coming out of the coffin.'" She offers a lazy smile and leans her head on his chest. "No heart," she observes, trying out both sides. "Hardly fair."

The vampire pushes her back to arm's length. She feels heavy under the intense scrutiny. "A psychic?" He asks, weighing her anew.

Then, "You said you cut your finger?"

###

"You might as well stop this game now," The Doctor says with what always comes across as a threatening amount of joviality. "Angry or not, Jack would never ask you to harm— me."

"Us," Pam corrects with relish.

She's right. He was going to say us.

The vampire's back is to him and though he suspects she can hear his every movement, she doesn't turn until after he's pocketed the sliver of pine.

"He was perfectly happy to talk about the Doctor in the blue box. I wouldn't say he hates you Doctor but he does seem to think you're responsible for his persistent habit of living." Pam clicks her tongue. "If I could, I'd feel sorry for you. Some people just aren't cut out for immortality."

She holds his gaze. "But Rose Tyler. That took glamouring. Just a girl and he tried to bury her under a pile of utter nonsense about time travel. Tried to drop her down this hole someone had already burned in his memory. But my Master found her, Rose Tyler."

The Doctor has the make-shift stake out and pressed to her chest faster than even she can move.

Pam just smiles, eyes and all. "There might still be time. He's never been partial to blonds."

###

The blue box fades with a wheezing sound Eric had never heard in all his long years of death. "The human did not harm you?"

Pam shrugs. "It was as Jack said. He didn't reach for a stake until I mentioned the girl. When he realized you were with her ..."

"Like scissors," Eric grinned, remembering the captain with the wide smile and strange, enchanting blood, half-mad and wholly beautiful and a hundred years out of place. "Come between them and …."

Pam's fangs sliced the air.

"You certainly scared him enough."

"The least I could do for an old friend."

"A delicious friend," Pam's eyes crackle with delight. "He was right about the Doctor."

There had been danger in the Doctor's eyes of a kind Eric had never seen before. If he hadn't been so confidant in Harkness' assurances that the man abhorred killing …. "The taste of the female, Rose, was well worth it. A psychic. She must have been. She was old and new ... saturated with …." He shook himself back to the present. "Enchanting. More than Harkness even, by far."

"Impressive," Pam says, making no attempt to hide her jealousy. "I liked Jack better."

Eric grins, unwilling to disagree. "He would have made a hell of a vampire. Were he able to be turned."

Pam crosses her arms as only Pam can. "I still think you should have let me keep him."


End file.
